I opened my eyes to the sound of snoring. There were no windows, so I had no idea what time it was. I lay awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling. A few minutes later I heard footsteps in the corridor outside the door followed by he commander walking into our room.

"Everybody up," he shouted. "Leave anything you have here. Be downstairs quickly or you may not get food. Down the stairs turn left and that is the kitchen. Come on." His last comment was unnecessary. The thought of food has gotten us all out of bed fast than any other motivation could have. Most of us didn't have any clothes to change into, so we all paraded down the stairs. Sunshine, I noticed, was at the back of the group and slowly limped down the stairs. He seemed to have as much trouble going down as he did going up.

The kitchen had tables in the very back of the room and on them were plates of varying sizes with lots of meats and bread. We all sat down and ate quickly in silence. The food was warm and fresh. I ate until I was full. It was a new experience. I hardly noticed the commander side out of the room.

Once most of us were finished, a middle aged woman walked into the kitchen. She wore a crisp, clean dress, and she had a deep frown. She had a clipboard cradled in her arms. 

"Follow me children," she called in a shrill voice.

Those who didn't notice her approach, visibly jumped. I supposed all of us had reason to be a little paranoid. We stared at each other in silence. Where was this woman going to take us? It dawned on me that most of these people thought they were here to be killed. We could only hope for the best.

"Follow me," she repeated after several moments when we didn't move. We slowly stood up and walked behind her out the door. She lead us to the room we were in yesterday. The racks were pushed against the walls so there was an open space in the middle.

The woman started talking as soon as the last person, Sunshine, entered the room.

"You will be separated into seven groups of two and one group of three. You will be allowed to pick your partner. There will be challenges every day where both of you will compete. Points will be tallied. The team with the best score will receive the best jobs. Those of you with the lowest score will receive the worst jobs. And believe me," she said, "you don't want to be the last team." 

I could feel the tension grow in the room and fear start to to take its hold on everybody. I looked around the room and found myself meeting Sunshine's eyes. He peered at me and and tilted his head sideways as if he just noticed something odd and was trying to find an explanation for the thing he was seeing. It unnerved me. I dropped my eyes, trying to escape his stare.

"Find a partner," the woman said.

I didn't want to find a partner. I would either hate the person I was working with, or I would become attached to them. Neither was a commendable choice. So I ended up settling on somewhere in between. Sunshine.

I walked over to him. He hadn't moved since I last saw him. 

"Hey Sunshine your my partner" I told him. I was being rude, but I thought a question could've been turned down easier.

He narrowed his eyes for a second, but I felt a trace of happiness in him.

"You don't want me as your partner," he said. 

I was slightly taken aback. "What? Why?" I said.

"Have you not noticed my limp?" he hissed. "You have a chance of getting a good score with someone else. You heard what the lady said. You don't want to be last. And with me, you can bet you will be last." he hissed.

Oh. So that was it. I hardly cared about my score, and cared even less what the woman had to say about it. With a lower score, I had less of a chance of being noticed. Instead I said, "Then you will be my partner." I left no room for discussion.

He looked over his shoulder as if trying to find something. When he turned back, he said only one word. "Fine."

And so we became partners. 

Everyone else found a partner with little struggle and there were, surprisingly, no fights over partners. Trevor and the boy he was walking with when we came here paired up. The girl who stole the knife, Vivian, ended up with a girl with short brown hair. They appeared to know each other quite well. The woman was standing at the front of the room with a huge false smile. 

"Now, everybody needs to grab a wooden sword from the rack in the back and we will practice sparring." 

The sword I picked was horribly balanced. In such an expensive place such as this, one might think they would have better materials, but it was not so. I searched around the rack for a better sword, the the pickings were slim. I settled on the one handed sword I originally had picked. It was the closest I would get to a good weapon.

The woman made us practice different positions with thrusts and blocks until my arms hurt. I had previous practice with a sword, though I wasn't very good. Sunshine, though, had clearly never even held a sword before.

Most people were the same way. The woman was constantly screeching at people, telling them to get their sword up or to not let their guard down. Sunshine tried to strike conversation. 

"So," he said, "what's your name anyways?" Thrust.

I blocked his sword and responded with a side-cut. "Thorne," I said, exasperated. I didn't really want to talk at all, but my name couldn't hurt anything. 

Sunshine glanced at my face for a couple of seconds and I was able to give him a nasty blow on his shoulder. He grimaced.

"My name is Sam," he said. 

I was briefly taken aback. After a day of thinking of him as Sunshine, I had almost forgotten it wasn't his real name.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

I ground my teeth and didn't respond. Small talk wasn't going to help us learn how to use swords, and if the time ever came where I needed to use a real one, I didn't really want to die. When I didn't answer his question, he dropped the conversation. We continued practice in an uneasy silence.

Until the mid-day meal, the tips of our swords never dropped.

Lunch was the same as breakfast: bread and meat. I hardly minded. It was good. 

At breakfast, I was too hungry to notice any detail, now I noticed a set of double doors that led to a hall the kitchen staff were constantly passing through. I wondered where it led. 

The woman walked into the kitchen again. "Follow me." But unlike this morning, we followed quickly.

She took us too a room with other people our age sitting at small tables. The person next to me said it was a classroom. I recognized some of them, and I swore silently. I just had to hope none of then recognized me.